Y-M-C-A ..... Just Go To The Y-M-C-A....

It has been almost six months since an F-2 tornado touched down along the north side of Creston. After hitting the hospital and several condos and houses, it crossed the street and blew out all the windows of the dorms at Southwestern Community college as well as taking off most of the roof.
The Y is just to the east of the dorms. It seemed to suffer very little damage while the apartments and Area Education Association building across the street  from it were damaged beyond repair. At first we thought we would not be able to use the Y for a week or two. Then we heard a month or two, then all summer. The Y had suffered more damage than it appeared. The HVAC units were blown off the roof. The interior was ruined by rain water. Which is why we did our running and walking outside all summer.

The Y re-opened September 1. Most of the machines were back in place. The walking track was available. The gym floor wasn't quite done. Yet to re-open is the swimming pool; maybe by the middle of November. They are still waiting on the dehumidification unit to arrive and be installed.
We had opted to continue walking outside for the month of September. Today was our first day back at the Y. The cardio room looks much the same; same equipment. The walls are blue now, though.

I'm back on the treadmill. It is so much easier for me to walk on a treadmill rather than the track which is what I used to do. My knees and hips don't hurt when I use the treadmill and I can walk much faster. I have decided to concentrate on my cardiovascular exercise routine this winter - getting my heart rate up and improving circulation. That should also help my weight loss goal of one pound each week. (Which I've managed to achieve for the past month.)

The maplewood gym floor had been refinished about a year before the tornado. I understand that was very expensive. Perhaps that explains why the floor is now covered with a recycled rubber product. I don't know how it compares from a performance standpoint, but it is certainly colorful.

"Young man, there's a place you can go..." When I started to take a picture showing the new blue walls and bright red re-covered equipment in the weight room, I was going to shoot it so as to leave out the people using the machines. That was when the young man in the blue shirt said, "It's okay if I'm in the photo. I'm a model." I replied, "Does that mean I have to have you sign a release form to use your picture?" One of his buddies said, "No, just pay him $5.00."
Then I explained that this was the first day I'd been back to the Y since it re-opened and I wanted pictures of it to use in my blog. Blue-shirt-boy informed me they were all freshmen at SWCC and they had seen the pictures of the hurricane damage to the dorms and asked about the Y damage. His friend said, "Tornado, Ryan. Not hurricane." To which Ryan replied, "Well, I'm from Louisiana. I'm used to hurricanes."
I said I knew what he meant and asked him how someone from Louisiana ended up going to college in Creston, Iowa.
He told me that after evacuating from Hurricane Katrina seven years ago, his family moved to Des Moines. Then his Dad died and he and his Mom moved to Clive. He graduated from high school and was working three jobs to help out his Mom when she decided to move back to Louisiana to help her mother. Ryan was renting a room from his girl friend's family when they introduced him to some friends of theirs from Creston. It just happened the Creston friend was an instructor at SWCC. He helped Ryan through the application process and a week and a half later, Ryan was enrolled and living at SWCC.
I did not learn the names of his two buddies nor where they are from, but all three seemed like very nice young men. "Young man, you're in a new town, there's a place you can go. Just go to the Y-M-C-A" (Paraphrased from the Village People version.)

I took this picture of one of the apartment buildings across from the Y. I think it is being rebuilt. The bare slab in the foreground is where the AEA building once stood. There is also another bare area where some other apartments were damaged so badly they had to be torn down. Luckily in all the destruction that occurred April 14, no one was killed.

Remember last week when I was hunting for some tree color for my blog? Well, we have it now. It seems like it just happened overnight. One day no color, the next a town full of lovely fall colors. From the sound of the forecast, by the end of the week I'm going to be glad I'm back at the Y and not walking outside.